


Neal's first heist

by ashcat



Series: Secrets Series [1]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen, Grief, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-25
Updated: 2010-05-25
Packaged: 2017-10-09 17:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashcat/pseuds/ashcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal was five-years-old when he he first stole something. Part 1 of the Secrets Series: Five things Neal has never revealed to anyone about his past and one about his present</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neal's first heist

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to afiawri and hoosierbitch :) HUGE thanks to daria234 for a thorough and awesome beta &lt;3 All remaining mistakes are of course mine :)

Neal remembers that it was the the smell of smoke that woke him. He had rolled out of bed onto the floor, just like Fraulien Weiss had taught them to do in class. He crawled under the trickle of smoke seeping into his room to the half open door and peered out, _assessing the situation,_ as he had been taught to do by his father. He could hear his father's voice, guttural and moaning as he said things Neal couldn't make out over the loud thumps of things crashing about in the living room. His five-year-old body was trembling; he didn't know what to do. His teacher had said to always crawl under the smoke and get out if there were a fire, but his dad had said that when assessing a situation not to go into a battlefield unprepared, and right now Neal was unprepared. He waited, wishing desperately that his mother were there so she could tell him what to do, so she could make it all better.

She wasn't there though, hadn't been for the past few days. She was _dead_.

Neal decided that he would _gather more intelligence_ before deciding what to do. So he set off, crawling down the hall towards the source of the noises and his father's voice. When he reached the doorway to the living room he peered cautiously around the side. There was a fire in the fireplace, it was roaring, embers popping out and leaving burn marks in the rug beyond the hearth. Here was the source of the smoke at least, and he felt a moment of relief that the house wasn't burning down. That momentary break in his fear was quickly replaced with a surge of anger so fierce and all consuming that is shocked Neal. There were _photographs_ in the fireplace. The thumping sounds he'd heard was picture frames being hurled towards the fireplace. Now that he was this close, he could hear the glass shattering, see it littering the hardwood floor around the fireplace, among the twisted metal and wood of the frames. His father was _burning_ his mother! Even Neal's own baby book had pages curling in the raging flame, some surviving to be fanned out across the hearth.

As Neal knelt and watched, he was so enraged that he didn't notice that his father's ranting had died down. The only noises in the room besides the low angry roar of flames, accompanied by the pop and hiss of the photos and wood they destroyed, was a low sobbing. It was coming from the middle of the room, where Neal suspected his father was slumped down behind the sofa from the way it was jutting out into the room. Neal pulled his head back from the doorway and tried to take a deep breath but ended up coughing and choking on the smoke. He pulled his pajama top up over his nose and mouth. He knew what he needed to do.

As he readied himself, he thought that this was what his father had meant when he said that a man had to _have courage_. After a much more shallow breath, he climbed to his feet and prepared for his first heist. He darted as quietly as possible towards the fireplace, but froze midway when his father let out a broken keening sound. That sound made the hair stand up on the back of Neal's neck, and he spared a fearful glance at the sofa. There wasn't any movement though, despite the noise, so Neal continued onward.

When he got to the hearth, the heat was intense. The fire was rolling in the fireplace and the room was already suffocatingly warm. He reached for the page that was the farthest from the flames, one that had a photo of his mom holding him. As he grabbed the edge and pulled, a small shower of embers popped out from the dislodged blaze, a few landing on his sleeve. Neal let out a hiss of breath but didn't scream as small holes appeared along the right arm of his GI Joe pajama top. He didn't let go of the page despite the tiny burns; this was his _mother_. As soon as he saw it was free of the flames he turned and started running for the door. He didn't stop until he was back in his bed, door shut, and the covers pulled up over his head.

He took his HE-MAN flashlight from under his pillow and used it to look at his prize. His mother was sitting in a rocking chair, her face a little blurry but her smile evident as she held up a screaming infant, its face red, caught mid-wail. Below the image, written in her neat, precise hand was "3 Months - Marseille, France." Neal carefully peeled the photograph from the light blue paper, the edges of it charred and curled, reeking of smoke. He cautiously leaned over his bed and hid the paper between his mattress and box springs. He then inspected the holes in his pajama top and the red marks on his arm. He thought he'd be okay, the pain had already eased.

_It had been worth it._

He cradled the photo to his chest, glad he had been able to save at least a piece of her. He ended up laying it on the bed beside him and stared at her face, yellowed in the flashlight's glow. He couldn't help crying as he remembered the events from last week, from the day his whole world had shattered.

_That_ day, Neal had followed the agonized shouts of "No" to find his father standing in the middle of the kitchen. His father's face was so pale, contorted in a look of grief and agony, a look that Neal hadn't been able to understand, at five, when he saw it. When his father stopped shouting _(Grace, No)_ and started making a high pitched, wailing sound, that's when the tears had begun trailing down his cheeks. _Tears_, when his father had said men don't cry. His father's actions were frightening Neal, especially with his mother's name as part of the litany. He had instinctively reached towards his father, seeking comfort despite his father being the source of his upset.

He asked, voice shrill and reverting to baby talk in his fear, "Where's Mama?"

The slap made time slow down. He was seeking reassurance, and it was repaid in pain. Afterward, Neal stood frozen in place, his hand still hanging in the air from his prior supplication. He watched as his father bent over, his broad proud shoulders shaking with sobs. Neal noted as tears slowly trailed down his father's face, how it turned red now instead of the pale it was earlier. The sound of his father's muffled moans that broke through the hands he had wrapped over his mouth... the _ugliness_ of his father's grief. After a few minutes, he lowered a hand to grasp Neal's, to pull him close, enveloping his small unresisting body into a one-armed, bone-crushing hug.

"She's gone."

"When is she coming back?" Neal had continued to stand there, not raising his arms to reciprocate the embrace, but leaning into his father's legs.

"Never." His father choked out another sob before sniffling, trying to get himself under control. "She's dead."

Neal wasn't sure how to respond to that. He knew the concept of death from television, but not how it applied to _people_. He felt calloused fingertips brush over the livid handprint on his cheek. "Dead?"

"That means she won't ever come back again."

Neal listened carefully, turning the words over in his mind as time sped back up to normal speed.

That's when Neal started to scream.

In the morning, neither Neal nor his father mentioned the fire. Even though his father must have noticed the new holes with scorch marks on his pajamas and the angry red marks on his arm. There was no glass on the floor that morning and the rug was missing. The only evidence of the night before was a heap of ashes in the grate and an absence of photos on the wall. Neither of them had really spoken to each other beyond the most perfunctory phrases, not since _that_ day.

They never learned how to talk to each other again. They both tried, at different times, but their center was gone.

Neal managed to keep his mother's photo that he'd rescued hidden from his father through seven more moves to other cities and countries before it was discovered. Neal was ten when he felt the last remnants of his love for his father fall away, extinguished by the ashes he found on his pillow.


End file.
